POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WOMEN: MONEY, SEX, RACE, AND POWER (Meta Analytic reflection paper)

1. Demonstrating my Learning:

I come from Nepal. It's a poor country sandwiched in between two huge nations India and China.  I along with my friends used to think America as a dream country. A place where there is freedom and equal opportunity to all. A place where there are not so many problems like in the third world. When I had to choose subjects I would like to study during my abroad semester, I found this course. It seemed interesting to me. I didn't hesitate to sign in for the course.

I have been writing about gender issues in our society. I simply used to hate feminist approach of seeing things. I thought they were biased and didn't see the issues from male's point of view. I aimed at learning how the situation of women improved in American society.  I felt that there must have been a better way to attain equality other than playing victim card all the time.

This point of view affected everything I learn in the class. I saw everything I was taught through my glasses. To me feminist issues were simply exaggerated. Every time I came out of the class I used to ponder upon the things discussed inside the class. I felt I still had so many things to say to the class and the class was over. I always tried my best to put forward my opinion in the class. I think I will put the things I couldn't speak up in the class in this paper.

There are many important things I learned through this class. The first thing was to let go of my pre-concept to better understand the women related issues. I have been brought up in a family where my father earned a breadwinner's wage and my mother did the domestic labour as there was (or say is) still cult of domesticity prevailed in the society. My father being the sole provider of bread and butter to the family always used to take out his frustration onto my mother and us. While watching my mother go through such a hard work of the day and night and seeing her tears each time she was hurt (mentally as my father barely raised hands on her), I used to wonder, what if my mother was able to earn some money. We could have left the house and lived away from my father. That could have meant the end of all the stress we had to go through. 
As I grew up, I started taking up responsibilities from in my family. I started earning for the whole family since the age of 18. My father was a professor and he earned pretty enough, but to use his money would mean be under his control. And when I used my own money I could do whatever I wanted. That's where I understood the power of money. When I saw my sisters, who got educated in same schools like mine and were even sometimes better treated than me, (as I was the rebel in the family) not as competent as me, that made me feel kind of sad. 
I soon reached in my father's position. No matter how much money I made it was never enough for the family of 7 including my father. Everyone would listen to me. However,that cost me a lot of mental and physical stress. I always thought that was my time of making my own career and not looking after my father's family(technically speaking). I changed 6 schools in a matter of 7 and a half year's time. The reason every time was better salary. I started up at 20$ per month and my last job paid me 140$. Besides my school salary, I used to take tuition classes making almost 250$ per month. My sister who was more educated than me, who had done masters in English literature and Sociology, however never could achieve what I achieved as an under graduate student. My father had kept all his property under my mother's name but still she would never dare to act against his will. That made me angry toward whole females. For me, females lacked guts. I thought if I were not there, their whole world would collapse. The stress I had to bear as a head of the family (as I used to pay most of the bills), I every now and then thought of going somewhere far, where those responsibilities won't follow me. I used to write same frustration in my articles. That was my way of dealing with the gender related issues. I was victim of 'gender role socialization' process of our society.

"Perhaps because it is one of the earliest distinguishing pieces of information available about a child, gender appears to be an important dimension of socialization for parents in virtually every cultural, ethnic, and class group."¹

Although the article "Gender-Role Socialization: Lessons in Femininity by Hilary M. Lips gave me a rough idea of how my thoughts were shaped but it took me time to accept that surrendering to the mentality built up on gender roles in society is harmful even to men. There was one awareness program in youtube (Satyameva Jayete: When Masculinity Harms Men, which I also posted in discussion thread). It made me even more aware of my wrong way of thinking. By the end of the quarter, I was much more appreciative and open to new ideas than ever.

"How Homophobia Hurts Everyone" by Warren J Blummenfeld made me understand more about LGBT population. In our society, LGBTs are not given much respect. They don't usually have to face any hate crimes but they are kind of excluded from the society. It's hard for me to imagine being friend to be a homosexual. To be honest I was homophobic. I liked lesbians as they showed some kind of manly natures and they really seem beautiful to me. But in case of gays, they were too touchy for me. I would say it is a kind of sexual harassment if someone tries to feel me against my will. I remember running away from them. Also doing something that a male is not supposed to do would be to be a gay. And to be a gay was a matter of disgrace. It was to be less manly. And challenge to masculinity was not acceptable to any males. Justin Bieber was (is) termed as a gay in our society as his voice was thought to be too girly. There came a time when you could call someone JB or fan of JB to refer him as a gay.

I have met gays even in Germany while I used to wait for my train. They would always stare you for a long time and give you some gestures. I didn't run from them as Germany is quite safer place, but it used to disturb me. I too had acquainted an old German who after years of marriage realized that he was a gay. He sometime smacked me on my buttocks but he was too old to be scared of and I kind of loved him. He used to live alone and was nice to me so I tried to be as nice as I could. If I were a gay, I would have never mind to be his escort.

The other thing about LGBT is that they are the people who don't fit into traditional gender roles. "Homophobia inhibits appreciation of other types of diversity, making it unsafe for everyone because each person has unique traits not considered mainstream or dominant."² Our society has never taken ideas that stand out so easily. May it be the idea of sun being the centre of solar system or social opinions like women coming out of house to work hand in hand with men. People have been always reluctant to accept the change. LGBT issues couldn't be exception. When I watched the documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk" and also the movie "Milk", I was really forced to think from their point of view.

"I was born in a heterosexual parents. I was taught by heterosexual teachers and fiercely heterosexual society, television adds, and newspaper adds, fiercely heterosexual, a society that puts down homosexuality. Why am I homosexual, if I am affected by role models?"³ He said this to protect jobs of many homosexuals in California who were to be chucked out of their jobs for being homosexuals as they were supposed to affect children as a bad role model. Harvey's this saying would force anyone to think twice before putting any anti-homosexuality opinion.This would also make you feel that you can't punish someone for the mistakes they didn't do.

 While writing this paper, I found a post in Mens Room (a Facebook group where only men are allowed), which was a male's (!?) selfie where he (!?) picture with eye-liner on eyes and a duck-face. Everyone in the room was making fun by saying that person was a gay. I felt it was something that should not be happening. I put a comment asking all those guys to educate themselves about homosexuality and stop harassing someone based on sexual orientation. The comments after my comment were completely different. No one was using derogatory words any more. I think this is the difference I have realized in me. Normally, I would have joined them. But my awakened conscience didn't let me do that.It also made me feel that 'the world would have been a better place if good people have stepped front on every occasion they could to prevent something bad happening.'

Family structure has been changed a lot from past till date. From a family where men along with their children worked in fields to grow food for the family until family led by single moms and now even LGBTs is a big change.The chapter "Family Matters" basically gives us the idea how the cult of domesticity and breadwinner's wage concept came in our society. Along with many other invention led by capitalism, gender roles were also the one.

"Some economists, like the very influential Alfred Marshall, actually argued that women's wages should remain low to induce them to stay home and tend to their domestic responsibilities." ⁴

I believe this concept is still not away from our society. From my personal experience, German women have to pay more taxes for working full hours if they are mother to many kids, which gives them more incentive to spend time with their kids rather than spending time at work. Until 450 Euro, they don't have to pay tax. So they prefer to work 20 hours a week that pays them 450 Euro and spend rest of the time with their kids.

'Salt of the Earth' was another material that made me think a lot on gender inequality issues. I had different approach to understand it then and now.  I thought Ramon was doing perfect job. His issues were more important than Esparanza's. Esparanza was fighting for quality of life they were living and Ramon was stuck in question of survival. Besides, they both didn't know what other goes through. I am sure Ramon does other than walking in picket line and his work is as much stressful as is Esparanza's. I only saw the movie taking sides of woman. But now I believe that when Esparanza became stronger in the family it made easy for both of them later on. Their quality of living increased. That was good for both of them.

The other important idea I learnt was about gender wage gap based on the rigidity of sex roles. Men were paid more simply because they were men. And women were paid less despite of their equal hard work. This discrimination could not be justified by any mean and any logic. I thought gender wage gap was/is the overall accepted discrimination women have to face. I sometimes believe that it has partially to do with bargaining power of women as well. Men were unionised and they would go on protest if they were paid less but women were not as much unionised as men. Besides, the surrendering nature of women made them to accept the discrimination prevailed in the society. And our society never loses chance to exploit the weaker ones. However, not all of the women choose to do so.

"When I was about 20 I decided that I was almost at the end of my rope. I had no money and a woman's wages were not enough to keep me alive. I looked around and saw men getting more money and more work, and more money for the same kind of work. I decided to become a man. It was simple. I just put on men's clothing and applied for a man's job. I got it and got good money for those times, so I stuck to it." ⁵

This statement shows the extreme steps women had to take due to the gender wage gap in society. They were paid different just for being women. Masquerading as males made the same women earn equal wage. This shows how stupid is the idea of gender wage gap and how women were suffering and are suffering till date.

The story of Rosie the Riveter was another moving fact that proved women were capable of doing all kind of job that men did. Men however didn't want them to come out. And most of the Rosies were made to sit at home by their husbands.  

"Although the conventional wisdom holds that millions of women joined the labor force in response to appeals to their patriotism, three-quarters of the 19 million women who earned wages during the war had been employed before. What was different was that many of the white women who worked during the war were married and had previously withdrawn from paid work." ⁶

These opinions I was getting also made me involve in various discussion. I too wrote few articles in gender issues. A friend of mine said during our Facebook chat that 'some men believe making women powerful would end up in men loosing power. And men simply don't want that.' I agree to her opinion. Being a man, I however have a justification for such thinking. I personally believe that men are trained to implement strict gender roles in the society. They think following gender roles is the only way to bring order in the society. Men are trained to be the leader and not to be the companion. They want to lead all the weaker ones they can lead. They want to control everything around them. Liberating women would not let that happen. Letting Rosies work as Riveter even after the world war would mean economic independence of women which is dangerous for male dominance in family, society and nation as a whole.

Last but not the least, the story of immigrants from Asian countries made me feel that the racism in United States was not just about black and white. Unlike the stories told about Abraham Lincoln liberating black slaves, one of my black mate said that it was over hyped for political gains rather than liberating black population. The movies like "12 years a slave" portray only the exploitation of black population by white. I never heard that there were slaves from other countries with other skin tones as well. I was amazed to read about women migrating from Europe to survive hunger strike and end up being exploited. I was amazed to read stories of Chinese men being kept as house hold worker and were attacked time and again. I was amazed to learn about the concentration camps built for Japanese-Americans blaming them to have assisted in Pearl Harbor attack. I thought concentration camps were synonyms for Nazis in Germany. Hollywood never made movie on such atrocities.

"Japanese Americans were tagged like luggage and transported to 10 "permanent relocation camps" in Utah, Arizona, Colarado, California, Wyoming, Idaho, and Arkansas. Each camp held an average of 10,000 people."⁷

"In 1943, she(Teiko Tomita, a Japanese American women in interned at Tule Lake in California and later at Heart Mountain in Wyoming) wrote hopefully of freedom:

In the war concentration camp

The New Year's day's sun rises

Look up at the light

Which breaks up the darkness of night."⁸

These were basically the important concept I came across during the course.

2. Questions/Issues for Future Attention:

I have had many questions in my head throughout the course. Most of them were to justify gender roles. I don't like it but I thought the society earlier had no idea that there could be alternative way to run the families. Besides, if I look back at my family I was born and many other families in rural areas of Nepal, I find out that their marriage survived longer than in the west, kids at least know who their parents are. However, there is difference between happily living together and living together just because you are not economically independent or living together because doing otherwise would make you infamous in the society or sometime excluded as well.

I also saw that the approach to deal with most of the inequalities were neo-classical thoughts. Political economical thoughts were always ignored. Capitalism was another big enemy to bring equality in society and to remove social gaps. Any opinion other than capitalism was almost denied by the class as they were taught that capitalism is the reason behind all the technological advancements. I however ask isn't capitalism reason behind the history of human suffering as well? To me innovations were the result of people like Edison who were passionate about making human life better through technologies.  

I too questioned women thinking men as their enemy when they themselves were involved in imparting strict gender roles to their kids. The ideology is the enemy and awareness is the weapon to fight it. I did this discussion with Sherry Mansfield, who is a school teacher in Florida. She denied that there was any suppression to a woman from another woman in United States. But when I look back to the society I come from, I see mother-in- laws encouraging burning their daughter-in-laws for they brought less dowry in home. I see women marrying married men as much guilty as married men marring other women. I see mothers forcing daughters to hide sexual harassment done to them by family member as guiltier as the male members in the family doing it. So on and so on.

To get answer to this question and to learn more I am going to continue my reading, writing and discussions about gender issues in future as well. This time I would try to be as less biased as I can so that the new generation would not have to go through the stress I had been through being a man suffering from the concept of masculinity. Not being a man our society says to be for a day makes me so much happy than anything else.

3. Lessons About Learning and Self-Evaluation of my Learning Process:

One of the lessons I learned about my way of learning was I used to involve myself in all the discussions and concepts that came across. I never put myself in others shoes to understand from their point of view. They say that,' we listen not to understand but to reply.'  I was doing the same. Sometimes pre-concepts make it difficult to learn new ideas. It's like filling a glass full of water from before. We first need to empty it to fill new water into it. Our learning processes become easier once we get rid of our prejudices. I will take care of this in future.

On the other hand, taking part in discussion and speaking out what I thought made me test my ideas among other. When they said something against it, it made me think twice of what I believe.

To improve my learning approaches, I went through so many visuals that make you understand more than the words. I think women understand words and men understand visuals. Women learn through listening or reading because they are more humble to do so whereas male ego don't let them be a good listener. Watching movies alone in my room and videos on the issues made me understand a lot of issues. For example:- Harvey Milk explaining how he was not guilty of being a homosexual and why is it not any disease was more powerful to change my mind than the literature I read in class. Similarly, Shiela's visualization of woman giving birth to the child made me think a lot on how I could be nice at least to my future wife.

4. Open question:

When we fought in class or outside class about who should be responsible for child care, we completely forgot to see it from child's point of view. Most of us are used to see things from our sides only. Men argue from their point of view, women argue from their point of view. What if you could try to switch roles and argue on behalf of others? I guess this will change the way we see the things. Every gender related issues should be seen from both the perspectives. Such issues should not only be analysed from feminist approach but also from patriarchal point of view. Everyone needs safe landing. If we could separate idea from the people those who hold them, then we can easily fight those ideas.

5.   Overall Self-Evaluation: 

I love writing so writing assignment allowed me to express myself to some extent without being intimidated. I got to put forward my opinion and there was no one to argue me while doing so. If I ever had contradiction then it was with my conscience. It was easy to find my mistakes on my own than being pointed out by other. So I would say writing was one of the powerful way to learn from this course.

Group projects and presentation don't always go as expected. But when you have to work for finding out information for your presentation, you unknowingly learn a lot. Similarly, in group you should accept other's point of view. No one wants to be overruled. This makes us more open towards others opinion. Also to listen from other groups about different issues and discuss the problem from my point of view was beneficial. I found out lot of information on Child Care trends in USA while doing my part of presentation which I would not have come across had there been no such presentation. Thus group projects and presentation also helped a lot in my learning process. I took part intensively in them.

Class participation is crucial as we barely get the same environment to brainstorm about social issues. Likeminded people with same goal to learn something in a same place is a great opportunity to learn something new. Discussions in small group give you idea of how other people think about the issues and how you differ from
 them.

The other important thing was watching movies. They helped me a lot to understand the issues. I am a great movie fan and to get to learn through what I love to do was amazing. I wonder if the movies related to social issues were somehow made easily available to all the audiences. These movies help to raise awareness along with entertainment.

To sum up, I had great time taking the class. I learned a lot. I will continue the learning process even out of the class. I am leaving class with changed opinion which I am thankful of.

Bibliography:

1 "Lips Gender Role Socialization", Hilary M. Lips; 128p

2 " How Homophobia Hurts Everyone", Warren J. Blumenfeld; 274p

3 http://vimeo.com/18460684, The times of Harvey Milk (Documentary) 35:30

4 "Family Matters", Liberating Economics, Drucilla K. Barker and Susan F. Feiner, 27p

5 "Whatever You Fight, Don't be Ladylike", Race, Gender and Work, Teresa Amott & Julie Matthaei, 105p

6 "Whatever You Fight, Don't be Ladylike", Race, Gender and Work, Teresa Amott & Julie Matthaei, 131p

7 "Climbing Gold Mountain", Race, Gender and Work, Teresa Amott & Julie Matthaei, 228p

8 "Climbing Gold Mountain", Race, Gender and Work, Teresa Amott & Julie Matthaei, 229p